Ike, thank you :)
Turns out the problem was much simpler. Although to be fair to myself, I have to say that most of the online documentation I've found completely ignores the presence of a XmlCData element and only references the XmlText element. Turns out that you don't have to add/replace the <![CDATA[ and ]]> manually either, saving to node.XmlCData instead of node.XmlText will handle it all. http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/7/htmldocs/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=ColdFusion_Documentation&file=00001512.htm >> <cfxml variable="xmlVar">#trim(theQuery'sXMLValue)#</cfxml> >> >> <cfset xmlVar = xmlParse(trim(xmlVar))> > > >You're using one or the other of these, not both together, right? > >Other than that, it sounds less like there's something going wrong with >the XML than there just being some confusion about how XML works -- or >at least how it works in ColdFusion. > >Some basics: > ><textarea> <= this is both a node and an element (tag) >stuff in textarea <= this is a text node ><a href="blah"> <= this is another element node >anchor text <= this is another text node ><b>bold <= this is part of the same text node ></b> <= again, still the same text node ></a> <= closing the 'a' element node ></textarea> <= closing the 'textarea' element node > >Now when you create your xml packet originally using this syntax > ><car> > <price>$4,000</price> > <adbody> > <![CDATA[ > Wow <b>What a deal!</b> > <ul><li>blah</li></ul>Just Wow! > ]]> > </adbody> ></car> > >You have your document root element (car) with two child elements (price >and adbody) and each child element contains one text node, and here's >where I think you're getting tripped up. How that text node in the CDATA >is formatted isn't really important -- what's important is that it *is* >a text node. It may be formatted with CDATA - it may be formatted by >escaping the HTML tags - but either way, it's a single text node. And >actually once you've put it into the adbody element as a text node, you >don't really have any control over how it will be formatted when it's >displayed by a given XML engine and most of them will use character >entities (escaping) instead of CDATA to represent the string. The reason >you see the CDATA after your initial creation I'm guessing is because >you're not parsing the XML prior to the initial insert, you're just >building it as a flat text string and inserting it, so the XML engine >isn't getting its hands on it. > >Now, moving on... When you look at it in MySQL you're seeing escaped >HTML with character entities -- so it's showing you that the content of >the adbody element is still a string - good, that's the way you want it. >Then when you later take the XML packet out of MySQL there are several >different ways you can get at its content within CF and the results will >look different of course dependant upon how you choose to display it. >What you really want is just to get your string back out so that it can >be used in your HTML display. So your use of "xmlVar.car.adbody.XmlText" >as a variable name to get that string is perfect -- once the XML has >been parsed, that variable will contain a string with unescaped HTML, >which is what you want. > >The only time you won't see the unescaped HTML is when you're viewing >that text node as a text node within the larger XML packet, for example, >if you use cfdump to display the content of your xmlVar variable. When >you dump it like that you're asking the server to show you the structure >of the XML, in which case, what it's showing you is that you have this >text node in your adbody element that contains these strings like >"<b>wow</b>" -- it doesn't care what that string is or what you do with >it after you get it out, its only responsibility is to show you that the >string contains those characters. So that's also good. > >Lastly, where you're updating the XML packet with a new html adbody >should also be fine as well, as long as you're not using HTMLEditFormat >() on the string before inserting it into the packet. For example: > ><cfset xmlVar.car.adbody.XmlText = form.addbody> <= good > ><cfset xmlVar.car.adbody.XmlText = HTMLEditFormat(form.adbody)> <= bad > >Remember that the only job of the XML packet is to store your string in >that text node in the adbody element, so when you set the XmlText >variable this way, ColdFusion already knows that form.adbody is a string >and it will just store that string in the XmlText exactly as it is so >that when you later parse the packet and get it back out, you'll have >exactly the same string coming out, including all the unmolested HTML. >If you do any kind of editing to the HTML before you set it, then that >will change the string before being stored and the value you get back >will be whatever you've changed it to. So if you HTMLEditFormat the >value before you store it, what you'll get out on the back end after you >parse the XML later will be escaped HTML. > >Anyway, I hope I've been at least sem-coherent here and that this >information is somewhat useful to you. :) > >ike > >-- >s. isaac dealey ^ new epoch > isn't it time for a change? > ph: 503.236.3691 > >http://onTap.riaforge.org/blog ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:299044 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
